Cunningham stared blankly, then grinned sheepishly at Gray.
“I guess that was foolish, maybe,” he apologized, “but he made me mad.”
Gray was white as a sheet, but he tried to smile as he got up stiffly.
“You did good work for me,” he said grimly. “Look at my coat.”
He turned and showed a little rip in the back.
“When those chaps made for the woods,” he said grimly, “one of them dropped behind my own particular boulder and stuck the point of a knife in my back. If the sheriff had taken that girl off, the knife would have been sunk in me. Ugh! Let’s go back to Coulters.”
7
The hills rose until they blotted out half the stars, and the moonlight on their tree-clad slopes was like a screen of opaque lace against the sky. Utter solitude seemed to surround the little summer boardinghouse. No other house was in view. No lights burned in the houses the Strange People must occupy in the hills. All was silence.
Gray stood up and tossed away his last cigar.
“I’m going to turn in,” he said at last. “It’s too much for me. By the way, I may be gone before you get up in the morning.”